Could any new firm build up a blog community like Union Square Ventures?
I'm not sure it's possible today, but I'd love to hear someone argue the opposite. I'm listening.
It's possible, it just takes a long time.
A blogging community isn't built all at once. It is built a little at a time each day over years and years.
Brad Feld and Mark Suster are following in Fred Wilson's footsteps.
Arguably so is Paul Graham.
In the meantime USV has a true opportunity to make its community more of a social network.
I'd love to see that.
One argument people make is that those "inside the Valley" don't do this because they are here. I'm not sure I buy that entirely, but aside from PG, most of today's prolific blogger/investors like Wilson, Feld, Suster, Dixon, and so forth are not here, but easily have the best blogs. There a few in the Valley who could do it, but will take time.
I agree that we in the Valley don't have as much time to develop a blog community because we spend so much of our days meeting with each other.
Even PG only writes one new "blog post" a month and has all the comments on HackerNews instead of the place he posts his essays.
It's really really hard to keep maintaining a blog. David Hornik used to have a great one but he has only posted a few times this year: http://www.ventureblog.com/
I am not sure it's possible, but I think we will try. One way we will try more of - which we really just got going last week - is to turn our processes more inside out, open up what we do and ask the questions we ask internally. Part of this will be posting our internal research, we did that with education and it led to an amazing back and forth commentary.
If anyone can do it (again), it's USV -- no doubt! I love the approach.
Everyone I talk with about it LOVES the transparency of posting internal research!
This is something big that sets USV apart from everyone else.
It also makes USV as innovative as the companies it funds. Well played!
It's certainly possible, but I suspect that as is the case with most changing of the guard, this will take place with a new medium.
It helps to start early, but starting early isn't necessary--just look at the rapid rise of Marc Andreesen's blog, or in an example where the blogger wasn't already world famous, Andrew Chen's blog.
But it's hard to keep going--both Marc and Andrew barely post anymore as well.
Hey Chris, I like your thought around a new medium -- what might that be? Are you thinking of a Twitter following, or crowdsourcing on Quora, or....? Am curious to hear.
Quora seems like a good candidate, but I suspect it will be something that hasn't emerged yet. The world is unpredictable in that way!
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